England: England

Good blog title, huh?

I swear this is the last England post, I've been home for over a week for Pete's sake. But I still have a bunch of pictures so you have to deal with them. To catch you up, I went to Wimbledon and a Stone Roses concert. (Mom, those are links. You click on them. With your mouse. I know you don't have a mouse. Use the cursor. The thing that moves with your fingers. I think we just lost my mom).

England: The Stone Roses at Heaton Park

I planned my trip to England at just about the very last minute. Exactly two weeks before I left, I bought my plane ticket, and also my ticket for the concert. I went to bed excited that night, then woke up and decided to check how their latest warmup concert went and saw this headline: "Stone Roses Split Up Again as Reni Walks Off in Amsterdam and Goes Home." That was not the best start of a morning. I then spent a good while trying to figure out what happened, and it seems like everyone overreacted. I figured to cancel the Manchester concerts would cost them a lot of money, so that wouldn't happen. Instead, for the next week I was completely worried about whether my ticket would arrive in time. I would practically accost the mailman asking if he had an international letter. Then a week before the concert, I got an email from the ticket people letting me know they are not shipping them overseas, so I can pick them up at the concert.

England: Jeff Goes to Wimbledon

When I would talk to people about my trip to England, I would inevitably get weird looks and the question, "Wait, you're going all the way to England to go to a concert?" I would diffuse this by saying "Oh! I'm also going to Wimbledon." But, the fact was that I didn't have a ticket to the tennis. So, it was very important that I actually set foot inside the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, to prove my relative sanity. I did my research and I had a good plan to get inside. What is unique about Wimbledon is that every day they sell day of tickets to the first people in line, or "the Queue" as they call it. Signs for "the Queue" had the quotation marks and capitalization, I found that funny, so I'm keeping those.

England Day Four: Art

I went to the Damien Hirst exhibit, and I call the piece pictured "Suck it, Jaws!". I think it's much better than the actual title "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living". Don't you think?

England Day Four: Gloucestershire Old Spot Sausage Dinner

I went to a pub and was starving so I ordered the sausage meal. They said it would be 30 minutes. 6 minutes later it arrived. Minutes must be shorter here.

 The description was Gloucestershire old spot sausage with mash, battered onion rings, rioja, red currant and rosemary au jus. Mash is mashed potatoes if you couldn't figure that out. I don't know what makes the sausages old spot, or Gloucestershire, but they were quite tasty.

Anyway, this one really hit the spot. I also had a couple beers.

Some bitter, and a Carling. Bitter is a type of beer I should say since I explained what mash is. I got the Carling because an actual cold beer sounded good. And it was on sale for £2.50. That's about it, I guess.

England Day Four: Dandelion and Burdock

I went to go get my morning soda (don't judge me) when I noticed they had several types of a soda called Dandelion and Burdock. Having never heard of it, and always on the lookout for new sodas, I bought one.

I have to say it was one of the worst tasting beverages I have ever had. Burdock is apparently that black licorice taste. Dandelion, I think is supposed to taste like dandelions, the plant. So picture a combination of black licorice and a plant. It was gross.

England Day Three: Chips with Curry

Day three was the Stone Roses concert. I'm going to have to blog about that when I get home. Too many pictures to blog on my phone. Before the concert I got chips with curry sauce.

That's my favorite order from a fish and chip shop. It was only £2. That's about $3.10. £1.20 for the chips, £0.80 for the curry sauce. They give you a tiny fork to eat it with.

England Day Two: Train Food

I had to get to Manchester so I took the train. I splurged and got first class. First I want to say how awesome trains are here. They make Acela look like the Little Engine that Could. The trip is 200 miles. It had 4 stops and still only took 2 hours. Also, the cost is pretty good. First class was about $50. Acela first class to NY (roughly the same distance) is, what, $150?

Seats were reserved so I took my seat. Then across the table from me sat a roughly 50 year old guy. The first thing he did was pull a can of beer from his bag and start drinking it. It was 11am. He finished that one, then had another. Beer is free in first class so he had two more before the end of the train. Near the end he pulled out a tobacco tin that had a marijuana leaf decal on it and started rolling cigarettes. He seemed like a pro. It kept me entertained.

Anyway, the food.

It was a trio of crappy English sandwiches. One was ham and cheese. Another was called chicken mayonnaise. The third was cream cheese and cucumbers. I guess not too bad for free.

I am writing this blog on the train back to London. There's only 15 minutes left and they haven't come around with food. I feel ripped off. I demand crappy sandwiches!

England Day Two: Altrincham

I went to visit my friend Simon in Altrincham. I then met his fiancé Claire and her brother. Ah, what the heck, I will put the first picture of me in this dumb blog.

 I'm the one in the Sox hat, Simon is the tall one, you can figure out the rest. They all got a kick out of me pronouncing Altrincham. First we went to a pub and had these beers. 

They were only £1.99 each. There's no tipping here so that's cheap. I forget what type they were, Simon picked them. They were bitters and quite tasty. While enjoying the beers, a lady came over and gave us free curry. 

Simon was not impressed with the curry, but, hey, free curry. Then we went to get a proper curry as they say. I got the tandoori mixed grill. It had like 5 different tandoori meats. I enjoyed it, my best meal here yet.

Then we went to Claire's parents' house and Simon gave me this Desperado beer.

Beer flavored with tequila. It was so bad I had to take a picture of it. I looked at the ingredients and one ingredient was: flavouring (75% tequila). I thought that was funny because, what does that even mean? Also, they spell flavoring funny.

England Day Two to Three: Cycle Hire

I rented a bike for my time in Manchester. If you look at the pictures you'll see I had a little surprise when I went to go return it this morning. Yup, someone stole my rear wheel.

Now I should point out that I know what I am doing with bikes and I am pretty anal about locking them up. When I went to lock up the bike I looked if the front wheel was quick release and it wasn't. My mistake here was I didn't look at the rear wheel. I just figured the rear wheel wouldn't be quick release if the front wasn't. The thief was nice enough to leave the axel though which was quick release.

I had two options, return the bike or just don't bother. They took £100 for a deposit so I would be out that much if I just left the bike. But I figured the wheel wouldn't cost close to that.

The bike shop guy first didn't believe it was quick release even though I had the axel. Then he started adding up the costs for all the parts and came up with £80. That is close to $130. I said that was ridiculous (he agreed) and to use the wholesale price. He did that and came up with £39. Still pricey I thought but I was ok with that. Then he said he had to call the boss. After that conversation they said it was £60. I said "Don't you think that's too much?" He said yes but nothing he could do. So the total cost was £77 with the rental price.

I "saved" £23 by returning it. Returning it took 45 minutes to walk there carrying the bike, dealing with the bike guys, then walking back. Carrying it, I also got grease on my shorts. In retrospect I wish I had just left the bike and I could have kept the lock, helmet and lights, and I would have clean shorts.

In conclusion, uh I don't know, don't bike?

England Day Two: Iced Tea! And Beer! Exclamation!

Well I found some iced tea and they were also nice enough to give me a cup of ice too. It was pretty good, though pricey at £2.

Then, hey it's 11am here, but it feels like 6am to me, that's beer time! They had a crappy selection at the train station pub so I ended up with a Fuller's London Pride. It was good but I know there's much better beers out there waiting for me.

England Day Two: Banksy

I saw two Banksy's in 10 minutes.

England Day Two: Full English Breakfast

I'm on record as proving the equation "Lunch > Breakfast", but I have to say a full English breakfast is pretty good. Well except for the giant pile of mushrooms. And the beans aren't so great. So I guess I like bacon and eggs.

Update: My British friend, Simon, pointed out a few things wrong with this breakfast. First, no sausage. Second, no blood pudding. Third, the tomato is raw, it should be grilled. All three things would have vastly improved this breakfast.

England Day One: Ploughman's Sandwich

Well because of 2 hours in passport control, I didn't get to my hotel until after midnight. So no delicious beer yet. And I had to settle for a crappy sandwich. I went for my favorite crappy English sandwich, the Ploughman's. It is two types of cheese, lettuce, tomato and chutney. So LTC. I'm a vegetarian so far in England. But it was only £2.35. Hey! I figured out where the pound sign is located.